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Reprinted excerpts from What If…? Indian Cricket’s Counter-Factual History by Gulu Ezekiel. The extracts from the chapter "Parsees the Pioneers” are carried with permission from the publisher Sachin Bajaj.

But what if they (Parsis) had not taken to cricket so enthusiastically that they were the first to send teams abroad, to England in 1886 and again in 1888? Would cricket in India never have taken off in the first place? And what if the Brits had succeeded in their nefarious plot to destroy Parsi cricket virtually at birth? Would cricket in India have died an early death?

It is true the Parsis initially took to this most British of sports to curry favor with the colonial rulers. But it was not long before they ran up against hostility and responded with how they knew best, beating the Brits at their own game.

According to Vasant Raiji in India’s Hambledon Men, Parsi schoolboys were receiving cricket coaching as early as 1839. These same players formed the first Indian cricket club, the Oriental Cricket Club (OCC) in 1848. The OCC then morphed two years later into the Young Zoroastrian Club which 175 years later is remarkably still in existence. The Hindu and Muslim communities followed with their own clubs in the 1860s but were not as active as the Parsis who took their new-found passion for cricket to the next level.

The big breakthrough came in 1876 when Ardeshir Byramji Patel founded the Parsee Cricket Club and pulled off a coup in arranging a match in the winter of 1877 with the Bombay Gymkhana which was then exclusively white European. The natives lost the single innings match by 63 runs, 168 to 105. The scorecard for this match is not available. 

But there was another one in 1877 (October 15-16) which is available at cricketarchive.com (run by the Association of Cricket Statisticians), which shows "match drawn (Parsis won on first innings).” It also mentions "match was scheduled for one day but extended to two.” 

Emboldened, Patel now turned his attention to England, then the Mecca of cricket. This was hugely ambitious as no cricket team had crossed the seas to play outside India.  

When news reached England of these plans, the London Graphic (August 10, 1878) reported: "In the Bombay Presidency the Parsis, who have long shown themselves superior to the prejudices with which other Indian races are more or less fettered, have come out quite strong as cricketers. Before long it is rumored a Parsi 11 will visit our shores for the purpose of contending with us on our native turf. We have already received several severe drubbings in the cricket field from our Australian cousins, perhaps next we are to be knocked (cricketically) into a cocked hat by the descendants of the fire worshippers of Persia.”

Not for the last time, the Parsi community’s forward thinking was thwarted by a fellow-Parsi, K. N. Kabraji, leading to a libel suit and the tour was put on hold.

To add to their difficulties, instead of welcoming them into the fold, the British rulers poured scorn on the Parsi attempts at cricket and did everything in their power to thwart their progress including mocking their habit of wearing their traditional clothing while playing. 

The first bid was in 1868 and was triggered by the stray incident of a ball hit by a Parsi batsman which brushed against the wife of a British police constable who was taking a stroll across the Oval Maidan. This was enough for the Commissioner of Police, F. S. Souter to forbid the Parsis from playing at the Oval. Despite sympathetic support from some eminent Englishmen, Souter was unmoved and the Parsis lost that precious piece of playing field.         

Then in 1879 more hurdles were placed in their way. It was the game of polo, ironically Persian in its origins, which became their vehicle of obstruction. The English polo players took up wide swathes of the Esplanade Parade ground on the open Maidan where Parsi teams played dozens of games simultaneously. It was Shapoorje Sorabjee who fired the first salvo by writing a letter of protest to the Bombay Gymkhana to which the polo teams belonged, on behalf of the Persian Cricket Club. The polo secretary promptly dismissed the complaint. The bitter tussle continued till the mid-1880s with petitions and counter petitions to the Governor and letters to the leading newspapers flying back and forth, finally ending in defeat for the natives. They would now be confined to a tiny portion of the Maidan, that too roughed up by the polo ponies, making batting a dangerous act. 

The original idea behind taking to cricket — to curry favor with the British — was now turned on its head. From here on the Parsis vowed to teach them a lesson on the field of play. 

  

Off to Blighty

The first step towards this came in 1886 when the community finally achieved their lofty ambition of taking a cricket team to England, the home and birthplace of cricket.  

It was hardly a representative side though. Captained by Dr Dhunjeeshaw Heerjeebhoy Patel, it consisted of those players who could pay their own way. 

The results were disastrous — played 28 matches, lost 19, won one, drew eight. But the idea was to learn from the masters and surely lessons were learned. Further, they were granted a match at Lord’s where they came up against the giant of cricket, Dr W. G. Grace who at 38 years was at his prime. The results were predictable — MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) scored 313, the Parsis knocked over for 23 and 66.

The royal-loving Parsis were thrilled to be invited by Queen Victoria to play a match at Cumberland Lodge, Windsor Great Park against The Prince’s XI featuring her two grandsons, Prince Christian and Prince Victor.     

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (founded in 1864) was dismissive of the tourists in its 1887 edition: "The tour of the Parsis: From a cricket point of view the tour of the Parsis was a failure, and we have not thought it worthwhile to print any of the scores. In arranging the fixtures, the powers of the players had been much overrated, and in the whole series of matches, the Parsis only gained one victory. Despite their ill-success, however, they thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and returned home with the pleasantest remembrances of English cricket and hospitality.”

But with just one season in between, the Parsis were back in England in 1888, obviously undaunted by the disastrous results of 1886.

There were only two of the 1888 team who had toured two years previously, Jal Merwanjee Morenas and Sorabjee Hormusjee Harwar. There was also a marked improvement in the results this time: played 31, won eight, lost 11, drawn 12. Wisden though was once again dismissive, this time claiming the scores could not be published due to "want of space.” But there was a word of praise for fast bowler Mehallasha Eduljee Pavri and his "wonderfully successful bowling” — 170 wickets at the average of 11.11.

And Pavri it was who four years later shot the Parsi cricket team into the international headlines.

The first cricket team to tour India from abroad (1889-90) was G. F. Vernon’s XI of county cricketers though the captain himself had played one Test in Australia. They travelled across Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and India playing solely against India-based English cricketers, save for one match against the Parsis at Bombay Gymkhana on January 30 and 31, 1890. This was done more as a courtesy to the loyal Parsis whose past record in England both in 1886 and 1888 showed them as pushovers for the visitors.

The Times of India correspondent though sounded a note of caution to the visitors: "The chances of cricket are such that if Mr Vernon’s XI take it too easy, or run away with the idea that they may hold their adversaries cheap, it is just possible that the Zoroastrians may score a victory after all.”

Those words proved prescient. The Gymkhana was packed with 12,000 spectators of all communities lustily cheering on the home side. 

Batting first after winning the toss, the Englishmen were bowled out for 97 with the skipper (45 not out) scoring nearly half the total off his own bat. Such sub-100 totals were not unusual at a time when pitches were of poor quality and largely assisted the bowlers. Indeed at close of the first day’s play the Parsis had tumbled to 80 for 9.  

The Times of India reporter was more circumspect after the first day. "The visitors appeared to have recognized they had met with a rough lot, and though it is not generally felt that the Parsi team will win, yet the day’s results portend a tough contest for the morrow.”

The final Parsi wicket fell for the addition of just two runs on the second morning (a Friday), giving the visitors a lead of 15 runs.        

While R. E. Modi and Dinshawji Patel opened the bowling in the first innings, captain Framjee Patel this time around brought in his star bowler Pavri (who got two wickets in the first innings) to open with Modi.

The ploy worked wonders: in his very first over he had Edward Lawson-Smith (1) caught and bowled — one-handed at that — and in his next over bowled Arthur Gibson (6).

Vernon’s (5) run out at 15 for three turned the match on its head and when Pavri bowled to opener James Walker (2) at the same total, the tourists were in dire straits. Half the side was gone for a measly 20 runs when Modi got his first wicket and the crowd was now going wild with excitement. 

John Philipson decided to take the fight to the Parsi bowler and cracked Pavri for three boundaries in one over. But he tried it once more and was caught at mid-on by captain Patel and Pavri now had four of the top six wickets in the bag. There was brief resistance by Albert Leatham whose 15 was the top score as the innings subsided for 61 runs — leaving the delighted Parsis needing 77 for a famous landmark victory. It was the visiting English cricketers’ lowest total of the tour.

Pavri, according to Vasant Raiji, was the first star of Indian cricket, his massive physique coupled with an impressive beard giving him a formidable look. His outstanding figures of seven for 34 had given his side more than a fighting chance.

Pavri had opened the batting too in the first innings but in the second captain Patel promoted himself at the top with Morenas his partner. But at 17 for four the Englishmen had fought their way back into the game.  

It was Pavri again who thwarted them, this time with the bat. His 21 was the highest in the match for his team and the Parsis were home by four wickets. 

The immediate aftermath of the amazing victory was sheer pandemonium and euphoria at the ground. The victors were the toast of Bombay, wined and dined by the rich and famous. 

The Times of India in an editorial said the Parsis had "done honor to Bombay and all were proud of those who had held their own in both tact and temper…”

Grace, who was understandably skeptical after their disastrous tour of England in 1886, was suitably impressed this time around. "Six times they (Vernon’s team) won in India in a single innings, and the clubs they played against were the strongest in India, which makes their defeat by the Parsee 11 all the more remarkable.”  

The defeated captain and his team were stoic and sporting in defeat though other English observers were not so charitable, predicting dire consequences for the rulers being humbled by the natives at their own game.

Even Wisden was impressed enough in their 1891 edition to praise the Parsis for inflicting the sole defeat on the tourists on their long tour of Ceylon and India (played 13, won 10, drawn two, lost one). "The game aroused the greatest interest, and success of the home 11 by four wickets was highly creditable.”

The defeat of a strong visiting side by a team made up entirely of Indians was the first such sporting landmark on Indian soil. 

That the victory by the Parsis was not a one-off was proved just three seasons later when Lord Hawke was back as captain and this time for the full tour. 

Once again the tourists were beaten by the Parsis, this time by a handsome margin of 109 runs in Bombay in December 1892 and once again Pavri was the hero with eight wickets in the match including 6 for 36 in the second innings. 

And to top it all, they again inflicted a rare defeat on the third English team to visit India in 1902-03, the Oxford University Authentics with the indomitable Pavri once more playing his part.

Parsis down under? Not quite

The plans to bring the English cricketers to Australia in 1893-94 were thrown into jeopardy by the refusal of the massively wealthy and cricket mad Lord Sheffield (1832-1909) to sponsor the tour as he had done with the previous one in 1891-92 which despite the presence of Grace had made a loss of 2,000 pounds sterling. 

This is where Parsi cricketer M. D. Kanga, a member of the 1888 team to England, comes into the picture.   

Kanga was on a visit to Australia and met with former Test cricketer Harry Boyle in Melbourne. They discussed the prospect of bringing a team of Parsi cricketers to Australia in 1893-94 as Lord Sheffield "had abandoned the idea of bringing a team of English cricketers to Australia” as per a report in The Australian Star daily dated July 27, 1893.   

Boyle had been appointed as agent for the proposed tour by Kanga and the July 27 report further states that though time was short, "Mr Kanga thinks there is every possibility of the tour being satisfactorily arranged.”

The Evening Journal quoted Kanga as saying that Framjee Patel, who was instrumental in organizing the first tour of England in 1886 would also help in organizing the Australian visit. 

However, just six months later, the proposed tour stood cancelled, a report in The Capricornian (January 13, 1894) stating: "The Australasian Cricket Council decided not to grant their patronage to a Parsi cricket team’s visit pending the probable visit of an English team.”

After Lord Sheffield declined, the MCC and the trustees of the Sydney Cricket Ground combined to finance the tour which proved to be a tremendous success financially, garnering a substantial profit of 7,000 pounds with crowds flocking to every match. 

But what if the late sponsorship had not come through for the Ashes and the Parsis had instead toured Australia? Would Test cricket have withered on the vine and faded away?